


Fingon: Stars

by ThatFeanorian



Series: 50 Character Studies for 50 Silmarillion Elves (...and Valar... And Maiar) [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cousins, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Stars, family love, my attempts at writing something happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:15:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21762826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatFeanorian/pseuds/ThatFeanorian
Summary: 2nd work in my 50 character studies series, Fingon is sent to spend a summer with his cousins as punishment, what insues is not punishment at all.
Relationships: Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë & Fingon | Findekáno, Fingon | Findekáno & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fëanor | Curufinwë & Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë, Fëanor | Curufinwë/Nerdanel
Series: 50 Character Studies for 50 Silmarillion Elves (...and Valar... And Maiar) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568458
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Fingon (Findekáno) is the oldest son of Fingolfin, his heir, who was counted among the greatest of all elves.

The first time I saw the stars was with my cousin Maitimo. The summer air on the night of my begetting day was thick with moisture, the kind that clings to your throat and even a cool breeze feels stifling in its assault of your skin. That was the summer my father had sent me away to stay with my uncle, disgusted by my lack of scholarly interest and hoping that a season -no doubt one he was sure would end disastrously- with Uncle Fëanáro and his notoriously uncivilized sons would be more than enough to scare me back into assuming a suitably demure attitude with my professors.

He had sent me away in the days before my begetting day, deaf to my wailing pleas and desperate declarations of apology, no doubt knowing that I had no intention of upholding a decent discipline without ample reason to do such.

I do now admit to having been rather fractious and argumentative with my professors, performing a shameful amount of underhanded pranks in the hope of scaring them away from teaching me another dreaded algebraic equation, which for the life of me I could not seem to comprehend. At that time however, my childish innocent brain could not have imagined a more unjust punishment for what I perceived to be harmless fun.

"Fëanáro will set your straight." my father had said grimly after the occasion that had finally pushed him over the edge, a rather clever prank which involved a pot of dark blue dye and my Vanyar language professor's pale golden hair. My father's stoicism, while religiously practiced, was regularly betrayed by his eyebrows, and on this occasion my memory places them at a rather fiercely low level, his constrination with me at a newly achieved low. I squirmed in my seat, my heart twisting and praying to an unnamed figure that he was joking. I had never in my fourteen years of life seen hide nor hair of my cousins or uncle, my father's pointed criticism of any and all of their actions excuse enough for my avoidance of their company. I knew little of the political tension behind their interactions at that point, a finer point of government which would be painstakingly explained in the face of my confusion at a later date.

It came as a considerably unpleasant shock when only two days later I found myself seated on a horse in front of the very uncle who my father so often bitterly excoriated as the two brothers exchanged tense and unnecessarily wordy farewells. I remember my numbness, my plain and simple shock that all my sniveling pleas and shed tears had done not a mite to help my case. For better or worse I was condemned to the company of my 'barbaric' and 'mannerless' cousins for a season, abandoned by my parents on the week of my begetting day.

I confess to weeping the entire ride from Tirion.

So it was I found myself arriving at the home of my uncle, still wiping self-indulgent tears from my face under his disapproving glare. My cousins, until then unknown to me, came bounding out in a clump, the red-faced toddler I would later know to be Carnistir hotly arguing with his brothers, arms crossed petulantly across his chest, lower lip quivering, unyielding pinkish glow encompassing his face. Ceaselessly provoking, a teasing smile always pasted across his face, Tyelkormo ran by his side, his silvery hair glimmering under the second mingling. Macalaurë ran nervously a few steps behind the two younger elves, calling desperate pleas to,

"Be careful, Ammë will have my head if you break something!" In the flurry of activity surrounding the three younger siblings, it took a minute for me to even acknowledge the existence of the eldest of the four, Uncle Fëanáro's affectionate greetings dominating my attention as I slid silently off the horse, waiting, unsure as to what I was expected to do. They seemed so wild, so unruly, so different from the stuffy and silent court children I knew at home, the ones among who I stuck out like a sore thumb. In my shyness, I feared among my cousins I would stick out just the same, except for being the most withdrawn and timid of the bunch.

"Atto, who's that?" I glanced up shyly at the speaker, a tall and lean red-head who was looking curiously in my direction clearly astonished that his father had brought home an elfling who didn't even reach his knees.

"Your cousin, Findekáno. My half-brother has sent him to stay the season." Fëanáro said shortly, and pulled his eldest into his arms, bestowing an embrace more fitting to months apart than only two days, the type of embrace I begged to receive from my own father, and rarely was gifted with.

"Find him a room Nelyo." He gave Carnistir a goofy grin, a look that certainly didn't fit with my father's depiction of Fëanáro as a scheming emotionless monster. He swung his youngest son over his shoulder, dissolving Carnistir's disgruntlement into giggles, and Tyelkormo took his father's open hand, Macalaurë's hands fluttering through the air as he loudly attempted to gain his father's attention. Under my bemused gaze, the entire family disappears back inside of the house, and I was left standing on the drive with my bags and the sympathetic expression on Maitimo's face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> translations at the end of the chapter, I explained who he is in the beginning of the last chapter.

It was a lonely first week, the Fëanárions so tightly knit to one another that I felt imposing attempting to worm my way into their lives. I wondered often why my father had sent me here, to wither in the background of a family louder than the entire city of Tirion, and to be honest, I must have written a dozen desperate letters home to my parents fabricating any number of reasons why my immediate removal from Fëanáro's home was necessary. Needless to say, my demands and solicitations fell on deaf ears, and I remained.   
The first mingling of my begetting day arrived with my tears, much as every other day. I hadn't even been sure that my uncle and his family knew it was my begetting day, and I had no hope for any type of celebration, expecting to be just as ignored as I had been the past days.   
I shuffled down the halls and plopped myself into a chair in the kitchen, already occupied by my aunt, uncle and my two youngest cousins.   
"Good morning Findekáno." Aunt Nerdanel greeted me distractedly, attempting to spoon oatmeal into Carnistir's complaining mouth while Tyelkormo tugged on her sleeve loudly asking if breakfast was ready.  
"Good morning Aunt Nerdanel." I replied dully, surprised and unequivocally pleased when she actually glanced up and cast me a smile,  
"I heard through the grapevine that it is someone's begetting day today." She said cheerily, finally abandoning the task of feeding Carnistir, who was far to old for her help anyways, and casting him a disgruntled stare,   
"Moryo, it is this or nothing love, so just eat it." She said sharply, and the toddler scowled at her, slamming the spoon down into his oatmeal so that it splashed over the sides of the bowl.   
"It's your 'getting day Finno?" Carnistir asked, ignoring his mother who simply sighed tiredly and marched away after casting Uncle Fëanáro a pointed look.   
"A fitting day to discuss the purpose of your stay with us, do you not agree nephew?" Uncle Fëanáro said, pulling his son onto his lap and pushing a spoonful of oatmeal between his son's lips as Carnistir loudly protested. In response to my less than enthusiastic expression, he laughed, his voice joined by Maitimo and Macalaurë's as they entered the busy room, the later still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, hair a haloed mess of tangles above his head. I cast a confused look at the three of them, befuddled by their humor and at the tender age that I heard adults laughter, yet was too young to understand the joke behind it.   
"Atto doesn't mean it." Maitimo assured me, his eyes sympathetic and he dropped his gangly form into the seat next to me, casting me a conspiratorial grin,  
"Have you ever seen the stars?" He asked, and I shook my head, furrowing my eyebrows in an attempt to recall if anyone I knew had ever seen the stars. They were mystical and foreign ideas, whimsical poems spun by those who had lived the great migration.   
"I didn't know they were real." I said interestedly, and Maitimo looked shocked,  
"Surely not. Atto, we have to show Findekáno the stars!" He said earnestly, his grey blue eyes, the same color as the sea on a calm and sunny day, wide as they locked pleadingly with his father's. Tyelkormo looked up from his enthusiastic attack of his food for just long enough to say,  
"I wanna see the stars Atto." And Carnistir nodded enthusiastically. Fëanáro let out a long suffering sigh and gave his family a grin,  
What do you say Nerdanel? Should we show my uncultured nephew the stars?" Nerdanel shot her youngest son a playful glare,  
"Should Carnistir ever finish his breakfast, I think that sounds like a lovely idea." I remember the jolt of excitement that electrified my entire being, the wonder at being able to see the stars, the source of so many songs and poems and sighs of the elder members of Tirion.  
Not an hour later, we rode away from the house, north and towards the sea, the air heavy around us with moisture as Laurelin's light intensified. It was a strange feeling to know that the light was growing and yet to see it fade the longer we traveled, something strangely pink taking over the light of the sky above us instead. We stopped at noon, and Uncle Fëanáro insisted upon blindfolding both myself and Carnistir, the velvety darkness that surrounded my eyes completely unknown to me. I felt my heart pounding in my throat, the irrational terror of being lost enveloping me before I felt a calloused hand in mine and Maitimo's arms wrapped around me,   
"You can ride with me cousin." He said, pulling me onto the horse in front of him, and two hours later we reached our final destination. I heard Carnistir's gasp of rapture before my own blindfold was removed, heard his exclamation of wonder and the happy sighs of not a few others as they beheld the sight still hidden from me, and Maitimo pulled me down onto the grass beneath our feet, instructing me to,  
"Keep your eyes closed until I tell you." He gently untied the scrap of fabric, and then whispered,  
"Now." I slowly opened my eyes and let out a gasp of amazement. The sky above me was not silver with Teleperion's light, was not blue or golden or the colors of the mingling, but the same black as the inside of my blindfold, the only source of light tiny pinpricks, like the inside of a blanket, revealing lights of pure and beautiful white. I had never seen anything of the like, their beauty unmatched by any of the jewels which they were said to resemble, none of the poems and songs and sighs doing even close to justice to their magnificence.   
"You see cousin?" Maitimo whispered into my ear, and I grinned, burying my face in his shoulder,  
"Yes Maitimo, I do." I murmured breathlessly. I might not have known it at the moment, but two things were born that day, my desire to see the outer lands, and my unfailing love for my cousin, both of which would last me all my life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Words and notes:  
> Laurelin - the sun (in tree form)  
> Teleperion - the moon (in tree form)  
> Moryo - Morifinwë, Carnistir, Caranthir  
> Finno - will later be Findekáno's nickname, Fingon  
> Fëanárions - the Quenya version of feanorians

**Author's Note:**

> Words and Notes:
> 
> Nelyo - Nelyafinwë, Maitimo, Russandol, Maedhros
> 
> Carnistir - Caranthir, Morifinwë
> 
> Tyelkormo - Turkafinwë, Celegorm
> 
> Macalaurë - Kanafinwë, Maglor
> 
> Atto - Dad


End file.
